Too Long; Didn’t Listen episode 3 — Nobody Likes Crap

If Too Long; Didn’t Listen was a movie trilogy, this would be the one with the Ewoks, the Wild West setting, and the Samuel L. Jackson — so you know it’s gotta be good! In this episode we talk about missteps with free-to-play and whether or not the Holy Trinity is on its way out. We’re also celebrating the fact that you can now subscribe to TLDL on iTunes.

Ya’ll better appreciate this show. Dodge made me turn down Castle so he could record. I suffered for this show!

Also as a wife I guess it’s my job to tell Dodge he’s wrong about something at this point… so you’re wrong! I accept jewelry or chocolate as an apology.

http://twitter.com/tdhowell Thomas Dodge Howell

It’s on the way! :)

Goldenstar

Oh my gosh or a chocolate piece of jewelry! That’s what I want for you being wrong. Make it so!

Elinnea

The debate over the Holy Trinity always confuses me. It seems like there are two different issues being discussed at the same time.

1) Should a certain class be locked into one role or have the flexibility to fill any one of the three? (To me this would still be using the trinity: at any given time you must be either a tank, a healer, or damage, whether on the same character or another, or you have no purpose)

2) Is there any place for roles beyond those three (crowd control, backup healer, whatever else you want to name) ?

They’re both interesting questions, but I often see them get conflated into the same debate. Which I think confuses everyone involved, and not just me. ;)

http://twitter.com/tdhowell Thomas Dodge Howell

I agree and I think we fell into that as well a bit. But I think both are important and I would really like to see a viable class that isn’t pigeonholed into one of those 3 categories. For an example I would say that the Enchanter class was almost a “must” in EverQuest groups, and I’d really like to see something like that added again. One could also argue that Entertainers in SWG were like that too in that combat-wise they didn’t do anything, but they added a lot of dymanic for people who liked to socialize in games.

Anonymous

The element missing from the “holy trinity” discussion is not the lack of flexibility (as you pointed out in the show, RIFT put enough of a bandaid on it to correct for that) it’s the fact that “holy trinity” class design forces co-dependency… not teamwork (that’s just a happy coincidence whenever teamwork happens.)

Co-dependency is an inherently unpleasant and unhealthy way of interacting with others. Trinity-based class systems guarantee co-dependency and force interaction with others regardless of enjoyment or entertainment factors.

In a game without trinity-based class design, a group of 5 players working together are able to support one another and combine their efforts without being limited to a “weakest link” mentality. No one member of the group is the sole provider of any particular role, and each of the group’s members are able to “pick up the slack” of another if one of them stumbles for a moment. In the case of trinity-based classes, if the one member who is tanking, or the one who is healing, fails to fulfill their narrowly defined role then the efforts of the other members of the group are meaningless. That “weakest link” mentality ensures that there will be finger pointing and recriminations. There is very little leniency to allow players an opportunity to LEARN. (The primary function served by “playing” is to learn.) Absent the narrow trinity roles, the efforts of ALL members of the group as a collective are the determinant for success in an encounter.

TL;DR version:
Co-dependency is a forced form of interaction that is unhealthy psychologically and BAD game design.
Teamwork is a positive form of interaction that encourages a more emotionally rewarding experiences and allows for variation in learning curves of group participants.
“Holy Trinity” based class design guarantees co-dependency, and actually discourages teamwork.

silver

I havent been able to listen to this show.. I have no problems with CSTM shows or other MMO reporter shows?

I hit play here and nothing ever comes?

Chris

Fixed!

Anonymous

Why is this seemingly the only podcast out there which is not IE compatible? I can just click “download” for Massively Speaking, and Tales of Tyria, and many, many others and the player pops up just fine, but for this show… nothing. Oh well…

Chris

FIXED! There was an issue in the back end of the things, and I’ve corrected that for this and other TLDL episodes.